[henrik_w]

Completely agree. However, the advantages of the Coursera courses are that they follow a schedule, have quizzes and assignments, and have active forums where you can ask (and answer) questions.

I easy to buy a book on an interesting subject (I do it all the time), but it's much harder to actually read it, especially if it's on a challenging topic.

For me, the best solution would be if the courses had the material available in text form as well. Then you could choose how to learn (video or text - I would choose text).

[plafl]

I have the same problems with books. I think this is because books tend to cover a lot of material. A short course on the other hand can focus in a self contained subset, which you can expand later.

[FrojoS]

Good point. The Udacity course on "Programming a robotic car" actually provides written pdf's. Unfortunately its hand written.